Department of Defense of the United States reduces the purchase of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) due to “frequent critical system failures” and being “unsurvivable” in combat, the Navy Times reports. Policy changes were announced by Deputy Secretary of Defense Christine Fox after the Pentagon received its final fiscal year 2015 budget guidance from the White House.
The Navy was initially supposed to purchase 52 LCSs, but due to technical problems and budget cuts the fleet will now receive only 32 warships. Three of them are already in use, and the fourth is due to commission in April. An additional 20 are under construction or on order with the two contractors, Lockheed Martin and Austal USA.
The total cost to develop and build the ships is currently projected at $32 billion.
However, supporters of the program have argued that the smaller ships, which require less personnel, offered the Navy the best way to increase the size of its fleet, which is now at historic lows.
"Secretary (Chuck) Hagel has long said he is going to have to make tough choices," said a senior defense official. "There may yet be alternatives to cutting the LCS program that Secretary Hagel could consider."
It is believed that the OSD’s (office of the secretary of defense) initial guidance in January was to cut the program even further, the Navy Times said.
Yet, J. Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, revealed his concerns in an annual study released by Congress in January 2013. Gilmore said he believed the LCS is still “not expected to be survivable” in combat and would not survive “in a hostile combat environment.”
Meanwhile, the Navy is reportedly considering possible substitution within the budget for costly LCSs. Pentago is also still mulling how construction and commissioning of the remaining eight ships in the purchase will be structured.
Credit to Voice of Russia
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